Rises With the Fall
by girl orpheus
Summary: The Arrangement comes to an end not with a bang, but a whimper.


**Pairing/Rating:** Aziraphale/Crowley, PG/PG-13.

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

**Feedback:** Worshipped and adored.

**Summary:** The Arrangement comes to an end not with a bang, but a whimper.

**Notes: **Eternal thanks to my fantastic beta Kirryn for her critique of this story. Title lifted from Frou Frou's "Let Go", lyrics quoted at the beginning of the story taken from a Counting Crows song.

Rises with the Fall

By Alena Fryin

Well I guess you left me with some feathers in my hand  
Did it make it any easier to leave me where I stand?

In the months following the failed Armageddon, the meetings become more secretive.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale actually voices the thought that they should avoid being seen with one another in crowded places let alone their usual haunts, but their actions speak for them. While lunches at the Ritz do not become entirely out of the question, one of the two is always bound to suggest an out of the way tavern roughly a hundred and twenty miles from the city where the most supernatural being they come across is the occasional Wiccan tourist searching for the nearest Celtic ruin.

It is a ruin they stand in today, not from ancient times but an urban structure deep in the thrones of corrosion, the skeleton of a rapidly decomposing building whose roof collapsed decades earlier. The ceiling of this place is the gray mantle of clouds have come to replace the sky, clouds intermixed with the long, emaciated fingers of the trees growing alongside the crumbling structure. There is snow on the ground; not a great deal, little more than an inch or two, but there is enough so what when the demon and the angel cross over its surface, the powder breaks in foot shaped scars.

"It's very…dilapidated," Crowley announces, ducking beneath an archway that at one point must have housed a door that either served as a gate to Wonderland or an entrance to the more vertically challenged members of the human race.

"I think it's peaceful," Aziraphale says. The angel is toting a wicker basket and between the lid and the case itself is lined with an fittingly checkered table cloth. Crowley doesn't remember seeing it anywhere in Aziraphale's shop, leading him to believe that the angel purchased it especially for the occasion. He wouldn't put it past him.

"You think _graveyards_ are peaceful," the demon says, head snapping back so he can issue Aziraphale a severe look from above the top of his sunglasses. "You and whole hoards of Satanists," Crowley replies with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, they _are_," Aziraphale says, lips twisting into a pout. "It's not only Satanists that come! I've seen perfectly ordinary people there as well and none of them appear to be mourners. Or so I assume. They weren't wearing black."

"Did any of them have large, stylish glasses?" says Crowley. "Or possibly purple hair?"

"No," Aziraphale says, expression shifting from mildly petulant to downright perplexed. "Why?"

"Emo kids," Crowley says, and, before the angel can make some unwittingly foolish comment about what large Australian birds were doing in cemeteries, continues. "Teenagers who think that Death is an art form and cut up their skin with paper clips to look sad."

His lips quirk into an unpleasant and somewhat feral grin, disclosing teeth that are not, as many would think, yellow, but a blinding white that mirrors the stray patches of snow surrounding him. While most demons think that having blackened molars adds to their fierce air, Crowley lived through the 14th century once and has no real desire to reenact any part of it, and this includes the distinct lack of dental hygiene that was practiced by…well, everyone.

"Why ever would they do that?" Aziraphale asks.

"You'd be amazed to know what humans will do to try to put some meaning in their lives," Crowley says with a derisive snort. He points to an area free of debris habited by several small shrubs and performs several nimble steps that could be mistaken for dance moves to cross the last of the rubble. "We can sit here."

The demon surveys the small hollow and, satisfied, crumples onto the vestige of a concrete post that at one point might have helped to uphold the ceiling. He considers smoking, if only for spark of warmth lighting the cigarette would provide, and decides against it. Go--Lucifer only knows what a stray ember would do to a place like this. Most of the building seems to be composed of chipped concrete dating from the Cold War, but who knows. Aziraphale follows, the maneuvers he executes less lithe than those of his demonic counterpart.

"Not that I don't appreciate the lack of walls or anything, but angel, why _here_ of all places?" Crowley asks as Aziraphale opens the picnic basket. The blonde begins to dole out plates, sandwiches, silverware (_For sandwiches? _Crowley thinks) and bottle of wine. The red of the container's contents is stark in newfound Universe of gray and white peppered with the occasional splash of black. "Or maybe I should be asking how you found this place to begin with."

Aziraphale gives Crowley a sandwich, shrugging as he pulls his hand back. "You'd be amazed how many lovely places you come across when you walk in the countryside," he says, smiling. The angel's smiles always have a disconcerting note to them, as though he knows some divine and magnanimous secret Crowley does not. And being what he is, the demon thinks, that may very well be the case.

Crowley removes what is most definitely a _dripping _sandwich from the bag and winces as a discolored glob of mayo oozes out of the translucent foil onto his jeans. "You didn't happen to get these from that charming little vending machine down the street from your shop, did you?" the demon asks.

"I thought it would be all right," says Aziraphale sheepishly, unwrapping his own sandwich to inspect it. He frowns when he sees that it is in the same condition as Crowley's and proceeds to rebind it in its saran wrap package.

"_We_ invented vending machines," says Crowley. "How could you possible think that they would be anything _but_ evil?"

"Your people did that?"

"Believe me, if you can't pronounce the ingredients in a food product, somebody from my side made it," the demon says. He selects an apple from the basket and proceeds to polish the piece of fruit on the lapel of his coat, hoping it did not come from the same location as the sandwich.

And here Crowley was hoping to avoid any shop talk, at least for a few minutes. With an internal sigh, the demon sinks his teeth into the vibrant flesh of the apple.

If the world had ended--and it nearly did--there would be no more vending machine sandwiches, no more apples, no more red and white table cloths that angels fold out across a few sad plants fighting against the November chill.

There was also the possibility that there would be no angels in general.

Crowley places the apple down and picks up the moist sandwich.

The thought is not worth brooding on. The world was saved, Heaven and Hell were still (technically) pitted one against the other until the day the real, live Apocalypse came knocking. And because of their continued animosity towards one another, Crowley and Aziraphale were still technically enemies, which had begun to cause somewhat of a problem.

No one in Hell had announced that they knew about the Arrangement, but enough snide comments at been dropped to convince Crowley the cat was out of the bag.

_How's the angel, what was his name? Oh yes, I remember him. Chap who lost the flaming sword. Gotcha. What were you doing having a drink with him, anyway? _Crowley swallows the final chunk of apple flesh, all too aware of his descent into silence.

Oh, they had known all along that he and Aziraphale met on occasion but now…

_Now they know _everything _or close to everything, _Crowley thinks. He takes a bite of his sandwich, fighting back a grimace as the semi-rancid mayo rolls down his throat. _Know blessed near everything and we'll both be in more trouble than we could weasel our way out of if this goes on_.

The demon closes his eyes and watching the colors play in the insides of his eyelids for a moment, but beyond the swirl of black on blue, the image of the angel across from him hovers.

He opens his eyes and, finding the sight in his peripheral vision no different, tries focuses on the sandwich.

He fails miserably.

The Arrangement has to end.

It is not a pleasant notion in the slightest, what else can they do but severe all ties? The longer their bargain goes on, the greater chance there is of Heaven and Hell reigning down some divine or unholy retribution on them both. Hell might simply drag Crowley back to the Underworld and torture him for a few centuries until he got it through his thick skull that fraternizing with the Enemy was not the best course of action. Crowley can't precisely remember the sort of punishment the bureaucrats in Heaven enjoy dishing out on their employees, but he recalls enough details to doubt it will be anymore merciful than Hell's sentences.

There was also a good chance one of the two forces would claim Crowley had corrupted Aziraphale or vice versa, and considering how high strung both the parties in question were, those assumptions could cause an all out war, bringing about the End of the World as the angel and the demon had hoped to prevent in the first place.

Crowley had nursed the feeble hope that their companionship could be overlooked for the last few weeks; their accomplishments vastly outnumbered their failures. Truth be told, the demon couldn't remember the last time either he or Aziraphale had failed at an assignment. He had held onto this prospect for as long as he could, but the more time pasted, the more spiteful the remarks from his coworkers had become, the weaker than flicker of hope had become until he squelched it all together.

There is no choice of the outcome being at all pleasant. They'd drawn too much attention to themselves what with the end of history and the avoidance therefore of.

Aziraphale begins pealing the translucent paper off his sandwich again, deciding that no matter how foul the sandwich tastes, he needs something to do with his hands, his mouth, anything to avoid looking into the intense and growing steadily _more_ intense eyes of his demonic counterpart. "Is something wrong?" the angel asks, raising the sandwich to his lips.

"We can't keep doing this," Crowley says. There, it's over and done with, and against all odds, he managed not to blurt those five deadly words. They leave his lips in a steady stream, clattering to the earth like broken glass.

"My dear, what do you mean?" Aziraphale says. His voice is even to a degree that makes Crowley uncertain whether he is feigning ignorance or actually oblivious to what the demon is referring to. It is enough to cause the demon's hands to itch for brief and violent contact with Aziraphale's face. He grips his knees in a bone-crunching grip in order to avoid introducing his fist into the blonde's nose several dozen times.

"Can't keep meeting like this," the demon says, fighting to keep his tone as apathetic as possible. "Look at us, Aziraphale. If you weren't getting hints from the boys Upstairs that they were slowly figuring out what we've been doing for the last six centuries, I doubt you've have chosen a nice patch of rubble as our picnic ground." He motions out towards the building, or what remains of it. The flick of his wrist is belligerent at best.

"Yes," Aziraphale says softly into the crust of the bread, "I think, as you would say, that they've finally figured it out."

"Meaning this has to stop," Crowley says. His gaze flits up to the shrouded heavens, then, thinking better of it, down to the ground. The quiet hurt spreading through in Aziraphale's eyes crushes him like a tangible weight, Atlas shouldering the world. "It'll make our jobs more difficult, but in the long run, it's probably better. Am I right?"

"Oh yes," Aziraphale agrees , face straining to retain its cheerfulness. "Quite right. I can't imagine what would happen if they found out the extent of what happened." The smile he flashes Crowley is tinted with a feeling far from joy, as it is the raw chuckle that punctuates his last remark.

"Don't _want_ to imagine it," says Crowley. He feels the grin shudder and shake on his lips and is only able to hold in place through sheer force of will.

"The Arrangement has…served its purpose," Aziraphale continues, pausing mid-sentence to search for the right semantic combination of words, searches for the syllables that will create the illusion of apathy. "We didn't really think it would last forever, did we?"

"Guess not," Crowley mutters. It wasn't supposed to go this way. Fucking business contracts don't make your throat tighten, don't make your eyes sting. Calling the whole thing off should have taken thirty seconds and a curt farewell and this is certainly not the prologue to a brusque good bye. The awkward beats of stillness pulsing between their chatter makes him ache in ways he didn't think it would.

They were, or now, _had_ been friends. Had been, and cannot be. Surviving the End of Days got you nothing in the end but the realization that six thousand years could be laid to waste in the span of less than five minutes.

"Right then," Crowley says, rising off his make-shift seat. He puts the half eaten sandwich in his jacket pocket, reminding himself to take it out before it becomes furry and apt to have a name like Fluffy or Rover.

Aziraphale gets to his feet as well and makes a show of brushing imaginary crumbs off the front of his coat, head bowed to his chest as though in muted prayer. It is only when Crowley approaches him does Aziraphale's chin rise above the ruffled mass of his scarf. One of the demon's hands slips out of his pocket and he offers it to angel, who accepts it. Aziraphale's fingers are surprisingly slender in comparison to the rest of his figure. The absence of imperfections scarring their pallid surfaces is amazing.

They look like marble.

Finite details in the 11th hour. It _would _be that dramatic, wouldn't it? They couldn't just have an amiable parting and be done with it? Nice knowing you, had some laughs, see you when the _real_ Apocalypse rolls around. That was the way Crowley would _prefer_ the whole affair to go, and by this point it is apparent his plan of making a hasty farewell has been made null and void.

_Idiot angel_, Crowley thinks. _Couldn't just let me walk away, could he? Pretending all this _meant_ something, is he? Well, _fuck that. _It's over, good riddance, won't have to hang around that molding bookstore watching him, waiting for him. Won't ever have to see him again._

The demon has time to map out each of these sentences in his brain, but not much. The final one comes to a terse conclusion, and then the Universe comes crashing down around his head. Because Aziraphale chooses that moment to seize Crowley by the shoulders and kiss him.

This is one situation Crowley never could have foreseen. He entertains the fleeting notion that this is simply a way of saying goodbye, an illusion which is shattered when Aziraphale's tongue slips between his lips. Worse yet is the fact that he finds himself kissing the angel _back_. He forces Aziraphale closer, strengthens the force of the kiss as though he hopes to discover a means to dissolve into the angel. They stumble, their feet tangling in a snarl of limbs, but neither notices when their knees buckle beneath them.

No beating around the bush with this one; Crowley is _falling_ just like Before, only this time Aziraphale takes the brunt of the impact. They hit the ground, but even the jolt of the collision cannot force them to part.

Crowley splays his hands out on the concrete to avoid completely crushing Aziraphale, and the fingers create fairy shaped craters in the light glaze of snow. He leans in and the sudden cock of his head causes the sunglasses slip off the bridge of his nose. They rest at Aziraphale's collar like a bizarre necklace of sorts, and brushing them aside is not an option. Crowley may be immortal, but it would take more balance than he possessed to raise one hand off the ground long enough to sweep the glasses out of harm's way. Kissing and kissing, forcing his digits into the angel's hair, looping his legs around Aziraphale's, feeling the brush of the blonde's absurd corduroy trousers against Crowley's jeans.

Eliot, the rat bastard, was on the mark. The world didn't end with the Four Horsepersons, the crash of nuclear missiles, the shrieks of monsters and divinity incarnates. It ends when Aziraphale whimpers into his mouth and Crowley is convinced that anything that follows that single sound crawling from the angel's throat occurs in another Universe, one where cities have been leveled and earth's dying star backs dry oceans, empty riverbeds.

Crowley does not know who breaks the kiss first. Perhaps a centripetal force beyond both angel and demon ruptures their embrace.

They cling to one another, fists full of fabric and hair, skin and bone, breathing heavily even though the need to breathe in itself is an illogical motion bred of necessity, not need. Looking down at the angel, Crowley realizes this is how Aziraphale will remain in his mind's eye for all time. Glasses skewed, hair fanned out like a halo, a corporeal realization of his sanctified status around his pale face, a mild expression spiked with rapidly fading delight gracing his countenance. The image is charred into his brain and the demon highly doubts he will ever be able to banish it.

He lifts himself off Aziraphale and unthinkingly plucks the sunglasses off the angel's clavicle, returning to their proper position spanning the bridge of his nose. Crowley helps Aziraphale to his feet without a word, relishing the ephemeral contact it allows him.

Heaven and Hell stand between them and he has never felt how monumental, how truly _unfair_ the division was until this instant. The world has ended, _they_ have ended. He is the living dead, the walking, talking ghost of the Crowley-That-Was.

It guts him.

The second and final meeting of their lips is chaste, and Crowley is the first to draw back, unlacing his fingers from the angel's sleeve. He is suddenly all too glad he replaced the sunglasses prior to embracing Aziraphale for the last time; he can fake it better this way.

"Do you want a ride home?" Crowley isn't sure what he means by 'home' and regrets making the offer immediately after posing it, more so when Aziraphale responds with a brisk shake of his head.

"I'll call a taxi," he says.

Crowley doesn't bother to think about where Aziraphale will get a telephone to call said cab with. He wants to nix the end of the Arrangement and create a new one, one where they stay friends, stay more than friends, where they give Heaven and Hell the middle finger, one where they would risk the wrath of the ineffable just to stay together. He wants to shriek a daring declaration to the stars, wants to claim he would kill God and Lucifer and everything between the two to keep Aziraphale at his side.

What he says instead is: "Good luck with…with everything."

Crowley has never hated himself more than in the span of that phrase.

"Right," Aziraphale says. "You--you too."

Crowley is careful to put his back to Aziraphale as he walks away, the sweep of his lashes against his cheeks frantic. He blinks to burn the figure of the angel from his mind's eye, the pained smile, the soft coil of the curls framing his round features, the ridiculous slacks, the backs of which are now dusted with a film of snow. The angel will probably be annoyed about that later; his clothes were always immaculate no matter how many decades behind they were. Annoyed, not angry. He has--_had, _he's dealing in the past tense from this second on--never seen Aziraphale downright _angry_, only irked. The angel has adopted British stoicism like a second skin and he does not call Crowley back no matter how much he _want _to.

Comprises between desire and duty do not occur in their line of work.

Not that the demon has any right to complain; he hasn't stopped his retreat and knows with a sinking heart that he does not plan to.

Crowley's hand dips into his pocket, questing for the pack of cigarettes hidden in the denim pouch. The first drag of nicotine into his lungs will, with any luck, overpower the new craving that has coiled in an appropriately serpentine manor at the bit of his stomach. He removes a cancer stick from the crumpled box and lights it with the tip of his index finger, ignoring how badly the finger in question is trembling.

Time stretches on in front of him, obscuring the corporeal setting around him, an infinite, bleak landscape dotted with broken images, dreams, plots, plans.

On the walk back to the Bentley, Crowley tries not to think about how very long an immortal's life can be.


End file.
